


Who We Became (“Call Whenever”)

by thatsrightdollface



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Humanstuck, I was sad one day and this was just kinda what I felt like writing ahahaha, Light Angst, M/M, friends to moirails, palemance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 07:52:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13970625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: When Karkat Vantas called his old friend Gamzee to help him out, that night, he didn’t honestly expect him to come.





	Who We Became (“Call Whenever”)

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you have fun with this, if you read it. :D Have a great day, no matter what~!!

When Karkat Vantas called his old friend Gamzee to help him out, that night, he didn’t honestly expect him to come.  They were a long way from building gritty grey sandcastles down by the beach, now, with popsicle syrup sticky between their fingers and salt in their hair.  A long way from racing bikes down swooping, dirt-paved roads that could have killed them.  They hadn’t been kids for a long, long time, and Karkat couldn’t even really remember the last time they’d spoken.  High school graduation, maybe?  They used to sit slumped against a hallway wall during lunch, in high school, waiting for Karkat’s crush to walk by.  Only because Karkat didn’t have anybody else to sit with, he said at the time.  Gamzee used to invite him to all his wannabe rap duo’s shows, even the ones that were actually just on the beach and set up with absolutely nobody’s permission.  Karkat didn’t think he had ever gone.

But time had ground on, and Karkat was tired now.  His eyes burned all the time.  He called Gamzee at about three AM, his apartment dark all around him, undone homework piled on the bed where he hadn’t been able to sleep.  He had a shift at the video rental place the next morning; he had unopened bills, unread messages, unchecked grades posted on his college’s website.  He called Gamzee thinking he’d ask how things were.  _“Hey, man.  It’s been a while.  How’s your brother?  Are you still painting?  If you want to know how fucked up my week was, give me a call back!”_   …  That sort of thing. 

But no.  Karkat crumpled loose-leaf papers up in his fists, and he left a long, ranty message on Gamzee’s beat-up flip phone.  Ink ended up stained on his palms, seeping into all the little rivers of his skin.  His own words, smeared away.  The paper itself, slowly dissolving.

Karkat thought maybe Gamzee’d get the message later, maybe send over a couple encouragingly oblivious texts with autocorrected mistakes he’d never even notice.  That would’ve been like Gamzee.  Lots of smiley faces with little clown noses; lots of good intentions fizzling below the surface like carbonation in an unopened can of soda.  If Karkat needed to get bailed out of something, he would have called Sollux, or his big brother Kankri.  If Karkat needed moral support, or someone to be really pissed off at something for him, he would have called Terezi from the debate team.

But he called _Gamzee Makara_.  Why?  Gamzee had written “call me whenever” in Karkat’s yearbook, but forgotten to sign his name; Gamzee had a slow, laughing drawl that would’ve sounded right at home at three AM in the dark.  Karkat had felt a scream swelling inside him, like a balloon getting pumped up much too full, and he caught himself imagining the murky dark of Gamzee’s eyes gaping at him like he’d just said something really fucking smart when he hadn’t.  Gamzee used to message Karkat every day, practically begging for a friend.  Sometimes he’d responded to him, but not as often as he wanted to convince himself he had. 

Karkat might’ve been begging for a friend, now, though, except he was _mostly_ just stringing together long, elaborate declarations of hate for most of his classes and most of the people he’d met there.  Most of the clubs he’d joined but then stopped going to; most of the people he’d thought he could be in love with before they got too close.  It had been pretty shocking to realize he could still dial Gamzee’s phone number from muscle memory.

Karkat kept his voice angry, but sort of quiet so he wouldn’t wake his neighbors.  (He’d learned that the hard way.  His neighbors were _vindictive_ , especially the spidery librarian girl who liked swishy fifties skirts.)  He talked until Gamzee’s message machine cut him off, politely chirping that there wasn’t enough room left on that piece of shit phone.  By then, it was almost pointless trying to get to bed at all.  Work soon.  Work _soon_ , and then class, and then back to that same apartment and its pile on the bed.

And sure, Karkat didn’t think Gamzee would actually fucking do anything about that message, but there he was the next evening anyway.  Said he got the address from Sollux.  Said he didn’t think Karkat would mind.

Karkat had just rounded the corner onto his street; he was stalking his way back from class, stomping the sort of things he thought his classmates must have been whispering about him deep, deep into his head – _Karkat wants to make movies?  Hah, not with the way he drives people off, nitpicking everything.  Shouting until he realizes he’s shouting, realizes everybody’s looking at him.  Not with his saccharine, redundant vision.  How many love stories have been done before, by people who actually know their shit?  What does he think he really has to say?_

Nothing.  Karkat had _nothing_ new to say, some days, but then he realized he was almost-screaming, anyway.  Insults, if he couldn’t stop himself.  Challenges, if he thought he should try to prove he was better than everyone in the room already knew he was.  He was supposed to be writing a script, now, due so soon he felt a sour _sick_ spreading through him whenever he thought about it, but what the fuck was its actual point?  That might’ve seemed funny, back home.  Karkat Vantas with nothing to say?  Stop the fucking presses.

The air tasted smoky and sweet; the sidewalk was all leftover snow, slushing its way into Karkat’s shoes.  It was mixed in with the kind of stirred-up dirt that might’ve actually grown something beautiful, with a little more luck.

Karkat’s dorm was a reddish pile of brick and melting ice, slouching against a half-hearted sunset.  It was almost pretty, with its dim, unlit holiday lights, leftover from a few months back.  With the posters people had pressed up against their windows, and that skeleton in a fancy hat one of Karkat’s neighbors posed differently depending on their mood.  Almost, but not quite. 

Gamzee was parked out front, his big brother Kurloz’s car pulled up halfway onto what was supposed to be the grass.  The engine was running, and Gamzee himself was leaning against the hood with a cigarette loose in his hand.  He must’ve driven all day to get there.  Must’ve told his dad there was an emergency, or something – Gamzee worked for his father’s cryptic church, but the hours had been long even back in high school.  He lit up when he saw Karkat coming, shifting so the old car groaned beneath him.  There were crumpled-up soda bottles and takeaway bags in the back seat, and Gamzee had a blood-soaked murder clown or something on his shirt.  His smile was sloppy, goofy as ever.  He put out his cigarette and took a couple steps closer. 

Karkat didn’t exactly _mean_ to hug him.  He was saying, “You – you really –” one second, wrestling with his own tongue, and then he was pressing himself up close against Gamzee’s chest.  Burying his face in the muted weed-and-sea-salt smell of him and getting squeezed back very gently, like Gamzee was almost afraid he could squish him…  Or get him to change his mind about the whole “hugging” thing. 

At one point, Karkat might’ve been embarrassed.  It had been hard enough to say he was _friends_ with someone, for a while, nevermind pulling them close on the side of the street, next to the bike rack with a plastic bag caught on it and flapping in the wind as if it were almost-silently panicking.

It was like baring himself to his classmates every time he shared his writing; like beating himself up for the way he walked, or the way he sometimes tried to smile at video shop customers and got confused looks tossed back at him, or the way he put on a sweater inside-out without even fucking noticing.  Gamzee was huge and tangled, and Karkat didn’t think he’d washed his hair.  But he wasn’t embarrassed of him in that moment.  It was an interesting taste, not wondering what his neighbors might think, slipping disinterested glances through their blinds.  Just being shocked to see Gamzee, and that somehow becoming enough.

Gamzee was babbling about almost getting into an accident on the highway, and he was asking if Karkat’s day had gotten any better.  As if it were totally normal, his being there.  Karkat took him upstairs.  Sat him on his bed, in the pile of papers and notebooks and library stuff he should _probably_ have scrubbed down with his strongest cleaner-fluid wipes before getting anywhere near his sheets.  Gamzee looked too big, there, glancing around at Karkat’s notes and mechanical pencils.  His expression was difficult to read, but Karkat thought he might have looked impressed.  Might’ve looked worried.    

For a second, Karkat wasn’t sure where to go from there.  He asked if Gamzee needed a drink; he asked if he wanted to do a tour of the city the way Sollux and Aradia had when they’d come up to visit for a long weekend.  Go barhopping, explore the hiking trails, find dusty old shops tucked away down streets Karkat wouldn’t normally have been walking.  The kind with possibly-haunted lockets and chipped glass eyes and the kind of old books Aradia liked to read… All that. 

Gamzee just shrugged.  Said, “I’m here for _you_ , brother.  What did _you_ all want us to be doing?”

They ordered pizza, that night, in the end.  And Karkat talked.  He released everything that ached, like all the snow caked along the sidewalk melting into dirt, becoming grass and weeds and the rustling of little bugs Karkat would cuss at and shake off his shoes.  Gamzee piled everything that had been on the bed onto the floor, very carefully, in stacks according to what it was – Karkat hadn’t even known he owned so many beat-up old erasers.  He smoothed the blankets down so Karkat could lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling and jabbing his hands around in the air like he was telling it all off, all of it.  They talked about the way one of his teachers described great art like some lofty thing most people couldn’t make; they talked about why _that_ felt like an enormous steaming mound of bullshit.  They talked about the people Karkat had thought he could be friends with who drifted away as soon as the classes they had together were over, and the roommates who had ticked him off and then moved on. 

They talked about what it was like back home, and whether Gamzee was doing any shows (yeah) and whether he still believed in that mermaid imaginary-friend guy he’d had when they were kids (Eridan, and you know it, brother.)  They talked about wanting to be somebody everyone liked, but not knowing how to pretend to be a person like that, and eventually Karkat fell asleep. 

The next morning, Gamzee was still there.  Karkat reminded him to brush his teeth; Gamzee said he didn’t have a motherfucking toothbrush with him, so they ran to the pharmacy before Karkat had to go to work.  Gamzee asked if he should head out, after all that – after they drank coffee sitting on the floor together, leaning up against the bed.  After they watched a few dumb videos on Karkat’s phone; after they picked out Karkat’s fancier clothes to wear for a speech-giving assignment later that day.  Karkat said yeah, he should head out, but he didn’t _have_ to.

On the first day, Gamzee tagged along with him to class.  He fell asleep on the desk, cheek folded into his arms, and flipped his shit over how “miraculous” Karkat’s physics textbook was.  He kept grabbing the book to flip through when Karkat was supposed to be answering short-essay questions, pointing out the most dramatic pictures in a whisper he probably thought was a lot softer than it actually was.  They made mug brownies in the microwave, too, and Sollux trounced them both at some game online.

On the second day, they dug through Gamzee’s – Kurloz’s – car, looking for extra clothes they could wash up for him.  At least a couple shirts.  They found a CD from Gamzee’s infamous rap act, which they listened through as they cleaned – (even if Karkat didn’t get it) – and a notebook full of awful drawings they’d passed back and forth in class way back when.  Gamzee talked about how Kurloz had just recently let him paint up the walls of their living room to look like some sort of frantic and dripping carnival, all smeary-sick oranges and purples and greens.  Images he’d been “remembering” from somewhere his whole fucking life, he said, and Karkat didn’t make fun of him the way he might have once.  He only made fun of him a _little_ bit.

On the third day, Gamzee swung by Karkat’s work with milkshakes and they rented a couple slasher movies.  Only because Gamzee seemed pretty excited to see them, there – Karkat wouldn’t normally have given that sort of thing the time of day.  Seeing Gamzee get all giggly over the cheap gore effects _may_ have helped him feel just the tiniest bit excited about film again, though.  So that was something.  He and Gamzee re-read the script he’d been working on for class, then, and it turned out Karkat didn’t hate it nearly as much as he thought he did.  He still hated it, mind you.  But the whole thing might not be _such_ a colossal raging hell tornado after a couple more edits.

Maybe Karkat hadn’t known how lonely he was until Gamzee’s dirty socks were kicked under his bed.  Until tabs were open on his phone trying to define and understand horrorcore clown rap.  Until he found himself hunting around for wider mattresses and reminding Gamzee not to smoke so much.  Gamzee laughed about all that, because Karkat had never seemed to mind him smoking too much in high school. 

There were a lot of things Karkat should’ve seen differently in high school, of course – like how awful his haircut had been.  Maybe Gamzee was one of those things, though how he’d go about saying something like that...  Huh.  Fuck it.  Karkat wasn’t sure.

Gamzee’s arm was soft and solid around Karkat’s shoulders, when he hung it there, though.  After they met (and quietly mocked, from a safe distance) a couple of Karkat’s exes, his advice about dating was impractical and earnest.  It kept on being both those things, even after Karkat realized maybe he didn’t need to hear it anymore.

Gamzee’d been there for a while before Kurloz called, saying he’d better get his ass – _and_ the car – back home.  Back to splintering boardwalks and their living room wall painted up like a diseased carnival.  Back to whatever it was his father was preaching nowadays. 

“Guess I gotta go, man,” Gamzee said, then.  It was the same kind of voice he’d used when he got busted for missing curfew and Kurloz could only cover for him for a couple minutes before all hell broke loose.  The same kind of voice as when he got called away from school to go mop up his dad’s chapel, too, or when he had to leave Aradia’s LARP-ing intro session early because the school counselor wanted to talk to him about drugs.  “Kurloz is getting pretty motherfucking sick of walking everywhere.”

Karkat realized all of a sudden that he could say a lot of things.  He had all sorts of words bundled up in his pockets like candy wrappers and grimy coins that were probably never going to get spent.  He could’ve finally said, “Thanks for coming out when I said I needed you.”  He could’ve said he would miss him, or that the apartment would seem so big and quiet with him gone. 

Instead he said, “Okay, yeah,” and Gamzee reminded him that he could reach out anytime.  _“Call whenever,”_ like in that yearbook what felt like so, so long ago.  Gamzee clapped him on the back and dragged him into the kind of soft bear hug he’d been maybe a little nervous to give, at first.  The kind that might’ve gotten clown paint clumped in Karkat’s hair, if he’d actually smeared any on that morning.  Maybe Gamzee’d realized how long it had been since they talked last, too?  Since high school, since bike races, since staring out into the ocean for a glimpse of the mysterious fish-tailed “Eridan” until Karkat told him he should just fess up to lying.  But Gamzee had still driven out, and stacked Karkat’s notebooks tenderly on the floor that first night.  Cleared him a place to sleep.

It was more than enough.  Karkat rubbed Gamzee’s back a little, and debated kissing his cheek.  He didn’t. 

Karkat had watched Gamzee drive most of the way off and down his street – Kurloz’s morbid bumper stickers looking worn-away and sticky, getting smaller all the time – before he worked up the nerve to text him.  He told himself Gamzee probably wouldn’t hear the phone buzzing; he probably had music playing so loud Karkat’s neighbors were rolling their eyes as he passed by.  He’d probably reply when he got home or had to stop for gas, something with a lot of those clown-smiles, something sorry and warm.  _“Haha, my bad.  Missed this.  :o)  I’ll call you later, okay?”_  

Karkat messaged, _“If you just give me two minutes, I’ll come with you,”_ and waited for a lot of nothing to happen.

Actually, though…  _Actually_ , Kurloz’s car ground to a stop, stuttering a little in the gravel; Gamzee peeled himself out of it and waved up at Karkat’s window, smile almost as wide as the one he painted on when he felt like being a clown.  He propped himself on the hood again and lit a cigarette.  He’d look all guilty about it, too, when Karkat stormed down to join him there with extra clothes tossed over his shoulder in a backpack.  And toothbrushes – _obviously_ , toothbrushes.  The cigarette would disappear like some sort of magic trick, then, but Gamzee’d fumble a little getting his lighter back into his pocket.

Karkat pointed out that when they got back, the bakery by the mall _was_ hiring.  Gamzee _had_ always liked to bake things.  Different things than that particular bakery was selling, sure, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t be taught anything…  And there was open mic night at a lot of the bars; and there were other laughably bad slasher movies to rent; and there were so many nights Karkat wouldn’t be able to sleep and might feel a little better in his own skin if Gamzee was breathing deep and slowly next to him.  Curls tangled on one of Karkat’s pillows, toothpaste hardened on the side of his lip.

Maybe Karkat’s voice was a little too loud, then.  Maybe he sounded a little presumptuous, or like he was trying to pick a fight.  He didn’t mean to.  God, no.  He just wasn’t sure how else to ask –  

Gamzee turned the music down when Karkat slid into the car next to him.  He looked up at the swimmy grey sky.  At the restless birds there; at the rattling branches.  Didn’t look like snow, at least, and it would be a while before it got dark.  They could get a bus on the way back, maybe.  Karkat could snag a rental car.  Even if they left right after tossing Kurloz his car keys, he might have to miss a couple class periods…  But at the moment that felt like a price Karkat could pay. 

Gamzee said, “You’re saying I should apply to work for a motherfucking bakery, huh?” and he used a voice all full of wonder, the sort of voice meant for looking out at the ocean full of shivering starlight, or listening to a new album he’d been counting down the days to buy. 

And when Karkat said, “Not necessarily,” he was surprised at how easily the thought came out.  Hardly had to analyze the ever-loving shit out of those words at all.  Not that they weren’t saccharine, of course.  Not that they had a gripping _artistic_ _vision_ that could prove his worth to anyone but the guy he was talking to right that actual second.  But they were his words – he offered them over smiling, and added, “To be completely, disgustingly honest here, I’m just fishing for you to say you’ll come back without me having to ask you.”

Gamzee laughed, then, bent over the steering wheel, burying his face in his hands.  He wiped his eyes off on his coat sleeve and said that sounded like something he could do, for sure.  Yeah.  Didn’t think Karkat would actually _want_ to ask, but you know – the world was full of amazements.  His dad might be mad, but hey, if Karkat needed him?  That shit could be motherfucking done.

Gamzee offered Karkat one of the (too many) warm sodas in the glove compartment, and then they drove away. 


End file.
